No orc is truly defenseless; slay her and finish your meditations.

Chapter 4: The Bloodied Blade

This is a test.

Of course, voluptuous or not, she is an orc. She could snap your bones with her bare hands if she wished it. Was she here to defile Myr's holy waters? Did she track you here after the battle? Surely she is up to something, or she wouldn't have come all this way. What better **** could there be than to hunt down the warrior responsible for her goblin pets' demise? What easier mark than a man bereft of his armor? You tell yourself all these things and more, letting some strange feeling cloud your thoughts.

She cannot be trusted. She cannot be suffered to live.

"Myr guide my blade!" you cry, lunging from your perch within the pool and raising your sword for a killing strike.

She was ready, waiting. The orc snarls, deftly crouching in her nearly nude state and lifting something from your pile of discarded armor. You need it not, and it will not avail her either.

But suddenly you find a moderately-sized, brownish object careening towards your face. The waters around your legs and hips serve to entrap you, and though you ultimately try to duck and slash the gourd away with your blade, you find you are too late. It crashes into your temple, the weight of it dashing your vision into black and silver starlight for but a moment.

But a moment is enough for her.

A guttural growl sounds above you, and just as you turn to raise your sword again you feel the sudden weight of the orc maiden crashing into you. To have leapt all the way to you from the shoreline, that is truly a feat of strength, and now, too late, do you truly see your potential folly.

A powerful, crushing **** envelops the wrist of your sword-arm, and a sharp, crunching pain twists it. You don't let go of your blade. How could you? At this point you can't even feel your hand at the end of your twisted arm. Something crashes into your head, and as your senses start to recover all you can feel are two large, firm orbs pressing against your chest.

Twin pains erupt like needlepoints in your shoulder and neck as your mouth fills with water, then suddenly you can breathe again. The rocky shore of the bathing pool rises up to meet you. It is not gentle. Your breath vanishes in a strangled wheeze as you crumple.

Your vision swims with blurred twilight and thundering silver falls. Then she steps into your view, waiting patiently as your twinned, spinning sight seems to finally steady itself enough to bring her two, twisting forms together as one. Her lower tusks are glistening red, a trail of your blood dribbling from her chin. Her glistening, scarred chest heaves with the bloodlust of battle more than the exertion of it. Her earthen hair is wet and dripping cleansing waters down onto your legs. In a way, she is still beautiful. Picturesque.

"Myr," you try to speak, but it is a barely a strained whisper. "Protect-"

A large, orcish foot hammers onto your chest. Even were you wearing your armor, the blow would have fallen like a maul. You feel at least one rib crack within your chest. You can't even gasp for air. You can only sputter and wheeze.

"Tsk," the orc maiden... the orc huntress... utters, then sighs. She sounds... disappointed.

The last thing you see is the bright silver flash of Myr's own holy blade as it plunges down into your throat.

It seems you've met an untimely...

END